The review of employee engagement that was commissioned by the previous Government is an exciting initiative aimed at investigating the state of employee engagement in UK businesses. This initiative, currently being led David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, has been put in place in to contribute towards growth in the economy. After years of gloomy economic news, including a double-dip recession, the UK economy needs all the help it can get.
Departments such as corporate communications and marketing certainly play a key role in engaging employees in the workplace, but learning and development departments also have an important role to play in supporting employees to feel more connected and engaged with the organisations they work for.
e-Learning comes in many varieties. At its worst, it’s a series of dry text-based screens which simply ‘tell’ learners about a given topic. I’ve seen many examples of this which are still being used to train people on business-critical topics. An investment in this type of learning solution is a wasted opportunity, as it’s likely to do little more than offer a brief distraction from work with little long-term benefit to the learner or their employer.
There is an alternative, however, to this kind of training which provides learning and development departments with an exciting opportunity to deliver effective business outcomes and a learning solution which supports employee engagement.
At Saffron, we believe that e-learning can and should play a key role in helping to support employee engagement. We’ve worked on numerous projects that have supported companies to deliver successful outcomes. This year, for example, we delivered a bespoke e-learning solution for Jaguar Land Rover to engage its employees with the company sustainability agenda. One of the key outcomes of the course was that employees were asked to make a pledge to do something which would support the company’s sustainability goals. That’s a great example of getting employees actively involved and engaged.
We’ve also recently worked with Transport for London on a course which helped employees to prepare them for the pressures of increased passenger numbers during the Olympic Games. One of the enduring memories shared by many people who were in London during the Olympics is of smiling and helpful TfL staff!
While not all e-learning solutions may support company-wide engagement campaigns such as those at Jaguar Land Rover and TfL, the point is that all e-learning solutions can help to bring about tangible outcomes for a learner that, in turn, help to improve employee engagement and organisational performance.
As my colleague discussed in a recent blog, we’re helping companies to take advantage of new cross-platform technologies and hardware, such as tablet devices, so that they’re able to maximise the return of their investment in e-learning solutions.
We’re excited about the developments taking place in our industry and look forward to playing our part in helping companies to engage better with their employees.
